I forgot how, seriously.

Tomorrow morning my six year old son and I will attend our first religious service together. It's a holiday for the Muslim world, apparently. We're in Rochester and honestly, I have not set foot in a mosque or touched my forehead to a prayer rug in maybe 12 years.. We're going to the Turkish Society of Rochester for the service, where pretty much everyone knows who I am and knew my father. There will be lots of looks and double takes from old friends of the family.. Some of whom remember a time long ago when my father took me to prayers as a child. Reis is going to be told to follow my lead tomorrow.. Little does he know that I will be copying everyone else around me. It's going to be interesting, for sure.
Happy Bayram and Thanksgiving.
Thanks for reading.
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Phoenix Arizona: nice place to read about

The single most impressive thing about Phoenix Arizona is the Rental Car Terminal. Intelligent design has a special place in my heart. The thing that brought me down was the emptiness. Phoenix is a lonely city- all dressed up and waiting for a party to happen, it seems, and everyone is a no-show. The glimmering mini skyscrapers seem to be populated only by the palm trees which surround them. It's a scene out of Grand Theft Auto if I ever saw one. The boring flat landscape is made interesting with shiny hollow trophies of an era which probably ended a little after Y2K and the bottom falling out of tech stocks. I'm well aware of the mountains, canyons and natural beauty that is beyond the perfectly linear matrix of streets, and I begin to wonder if maybe that's where everyone went. Severe time limits prevented me from finding a bike to rent and from exploring the roads for hours like I wanted to. Shit, I only put 30 miles on my rental car for that matter. Phoenix has an abundance of billboards. Some one is getting very rich selling space to all the corporations who pine for your attention. I detest them, almost as much as the car dealer ads on the radio.. You know, the ones that sound like you're listening to the preview of an epic movie, followed by a fast talker who reads all the fine print of that zero down zero interest deal that ends tomorrow.. Car dealers are slime, just like billboard owners. One is engaged in noise pollution, the other in sight pollution. Way to make an ugly place uglier Phoenix! I did not turn on my car radio, for reasons I just described.. But you can't close your eyes while driving. I lied there's something else I liked about Phoenix- the Metro running up and down Central Ave is a slick set-up. There's even a car where bicyclists can hang their bikes from the ceiling- a nice touch but one which I can't understand. The climate is near perfect and the roads are perfectly smooth and flat. Why bother jumping on a tram when you're already on your bike in the first place?

The Convention Center is a LEED Silver certified building which is respectable.. LEED and Green construction practices were frequent topics discussed at the trade show I attended in Phoenix. A speaker in one of the workshops I attended said something pretty dramatic:
"In 20 years, 1/3 of the jobs available today will be gone, and 1/2 of them will be replaced by Green-collar jobs". My profession engages me in the construction and renovation of high performance green schools. This is stuff I care about. Furnishing $5 million hi-rise condos on Beacon Street with expensive and exotic woodwork does not turn my crank. Furnishing a public educational facility with responsibly forested, locally harvested and low VOC emitting woodwork, does interest me, immensely.
I will board my flight here in Detroit shortly. My new Blackberry 8900 is junk- I'm trading up to a BOLD. Time to play some Word Mole. Thanks for reading.
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My bike commute just increased 300%

New job, different bike commute. For the past five years I was lucky to have an 8 mile bike ride to work. (I used to take the long way home of course..) Now my bike commute is 26 miles each way and I fear that it may be a bit too much, especially in the mornings. This is going to be hard to do more than once a week. I need to leave the house at 6:00 am in order to get there at a reasonable hour, and the logistics of clean clothing, grooming failures and odor control really make it harder than you might think. I rode this route home tonight for the first time and noticed that it was always a very gradual downhill with a tailwind, going north to south. Tomorrow morning it will be colder, it will be uphill and it will be into the wind. What better way to start the day than with a challenging 90 minutes of straining yourself while a backpack humps your torso and every driver acts like they wish you were dead? It will be a relief to reach the bike path tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Gewilli's commute is what, 3 miles? with an over-population of phreds whose primary training goal each year is to avoid being passed by anyone on the bike path? the East Bay bike path is narrow, bumpy, covered in bird shit, and always smells like low tide..The Blackstone Bike Path is stunning. I've seen all five paths in Rhode Island and Blackstone is by far the most scenic, interesting, and beautiful of them all. Thanks for reading.

Conformance

If you told me 10 years ago that I would one day break down and buy a "Christmas" tree I would have made a face indicating that I smell cabbage.. "That's blasphemous" might have been my reply. Now looking back upon 38 years of deprival of one of the most cherished and fundamental American traditions ever known, all I can really take credit for is saving some time and some money. "We don't celebrate Christmas" is not a compelling enough reason for a six year old boy to accept. Christmas is a holiday of glittery sparkly pine scented money spending gift giving wholesomeness and nothing more. Am I religious enough to believe that I will get onto G-d's shit-list for participating in such a pagan ritual? Well maybe so.. caulk it up there with my occasional drinking, pork consumption, gambling, complete and total failure to ever pray five times a day, or fast, or set foot in a mosque for the past 15 years, or give 1/40th of my income to charity.. and the act of buying a Christmas tree begins to seem like the most religious and good thing which the Angel on my right shoulder has ever recorded in my little book of Good Deeds.

Determination

I'm pleased because even though I crashed heavily two times at today's Canton Cup Cyclocross Race, your hero never quit, he avoided being lapped and even caught four people and sprinted past a fifth right at the finish line. My son Reis pulled a similar result in his kid's race for 6 and 7 year olds. He went right off into the weeds on the first slick muddy turn and was dead last.. until he got back on the bike, chased down and passed two kids and finished fourth. Mommy for her part, put up with all the pissing, moaning, whining and bullshit that Reis and I could dish out, all day long, before patiently painting Reis' face like Spider Man so we could all go trick-or-treating. It takes a strong woman to handle a couple of selfish crybabies like Reis and I.. but the knife cuts two ways and we'll leave it at that!
Finishing my first cyclo-cross race on the same lap as the leaders feels pretty good. So does catching and passing people and looking back to see the gap on them open steadily. A taste of that could light my fire to try even harder to do well.. Usually I just use cyclocross as a means to keep fitness sharp until January when the road training officially begins.
Another home run from today that I'm absolutely beaming about: I found my Powertap bike computer. It was lost in mid September and I've looked everywhere for it, even in the place where it was found: the pocket of my brown camouflage shorts. I've repeatedly fondled these shorts and others over the past weeks, hoping to feel the little device from outside. Well today I said fuck-it and shoved my hand into the pocket for once and [curse your slim profile, Powertap] there it was. I came running down the stairs almost naked to report the search and rescue to Ebru. She thought I found a million dollars, I think she was disappointed.
So it goes- I finally finished a race at Canton, on the 3rd try. My doors were blown off [even worse] on the 1st try and again a couple of years ago when I dragged my poor father to the race with me. He froze his balls off watching me pathetically try to ride a bike for 2 laps.. I don't think he was too impressed with me that day.. Maybe today makes up for it. Maybe finding the Powertap was payback for determination. Maybe this should be the last sentence of this story.
Thanks for reading.

Bliss

I have two weeks of free time before I begin my new job. Today after depositing Reis on the school bus I went out and did an endurance/tempo bike ride of about 37 miles in 2 hours. On my way up Route 102 North I noticed one of those ubiquitous NBW arrows in the road, beckoning me to turn onto Purgatory Road. It's nothing like it sounds- this is a tree lined country road with no traffic and brand new ultra fine (fast) blacktop. At some point I forgot what day it was and what time it was and that it's the first time in five years when I am not carrying a Blackberry. I looked up at the sky and it was shade of blue that I don't remember seeing for a long time.

IRONY

For the past many months and months, Facebook has pretty much hijacked my attention span, taking it away from this blog and leaving readers twisting in the wind.. unless they themselves migrated over to the land of imitation friendships. Let's face it, accepting a friend request is the equivalent of canine crotch sniffing. We proceed to ogle all of the friends, photos and other bullshit which our new "friends" have just exposed. It's a peep show of flashers and consenting victims.

Today something different happened. Something less typical than what I describe. A couple of things happened actually. First I stumbled upon the Facebook link to my www.americanturk.blogspot.com blog, where I was astonished to discover that I have followers. I can't think of another word which makes my insides tingle more warmly. Okay there were only six of them in there, but I am not acquainted with three- total strangers. This gives me a hard-on, figuratively speaking, and it explains the first irony which my title suggests: that Facebook played a part in getting me interested in blogging again.

The next surprise came in the form of a friend request acceptance and a message posted to my Facebook Wall by my new friend. I sent a friend request to Franz Wright earlier in the afternoon. By the time I got home from a friend's child's birthday party, he had replied with an acceptance and the following message.

Franz Wright Hi, and thanks for befriending me. I remember coming across your blog a long time ago and being greatly encouraged by some good words of yours. FW

4 hours ago · Comment · Unlike · See Wall-to-Wall
I usually have a pretty low opinion of my work, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. Franz Wright won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2004. That he stumbled upon my blog and found words fit to encourage him is the biggest compliment I have ever received. Irony No 2 happens to be that for twice in one day, Facebook sent me back to the drawing board (that is, my blog), and wondering why I have let is slip so.
The third thing I want to share with you is partly coincidence and part irony. I resigned from my job last week, and yesterday was my last day after five years of service. While my pre-resignation memo and my resignation memo which followed by one month were both ignored completely by upper management, my memo to all fellow co-workers sent yesterday was much more warmly received. I received dozens of replies from well-wishers and numerous compliments relative to my writing. Even a recent e-mail from my new employer also indicated that my choice of words was impressive. Yesterday a [former] co-worker expressed to me that I could probably make a living using this skill if I put my mind to it. Having said all of this, isn't it ironic that the weakness bird-dogged the most by my former employer was "poor communication"?
Here is my Resignation memo, followed by my Goodbye memo. I think Franz would like these.Resignation Memo:

Gentlemen:

I recognize that the problems at [company] are intense enough to eclipse all other matters but it's impossible to perform at a high level when my concerns are ignored. I can't continue to pretend that it doesn’t hurt me that my previous message entered a vacuum. This lack of communication has made things difficult.

No one stays employed anywhere for 5 years for being a low performer, yet the past few weeks and months make it seem as though I am being encouraged to leave. This does not feel good and I hope that I will be proven wrong somehow. From where I stand, it’s a dishonor to stay in this position and it invites others to disrespect me if I go along with the derision as if it’s acceptable. I need to stop trying to catch a falling knife.
If there are any positive ideas or future changes which I am unaware of, now would be the time to share them with me. Otherwise this will serve as my notice to leave [company] and we should discuss an exit plan.

Best,

Goodbye Memo:

Dear Fellow Co-Workers:

"It's what we do." Remind yourself of this the next time an assignment is getting the best of you.

It has been an honor to count myself among you for the past five years. Working with the caliber of people who populate [company] is a privilege- take pride in being immersed in such a deep pool of talent. As the melancholy of leaving you eclipses the excitement of a new career, it's abundantly clear to me that five years have not been wasted. I leave you carrying a giant payload of personal growth, valuable experience, and great memories.

I humbly encourage everyone to test their limits- it's not possible to become better/faster/stronger if we do not. We all want to be strong. Fortunately, the limits we decide to test are in our control. Let's choose them wisely so that our adaptations are compatible with our goals. You’re the captain.

It is my hope to be considered as one who cares deeply about [company], as one who salutes those who try to be excellent, and that your actions say the same about you.

Best,

Thanks for reading.

Big changes coming up

I'm excited and nervous- my hand's on the buzzer and I already know the exact answer, before the question is even asked. When success is guaranteed, why is there hesitation? Maybe because nothing that is worth having is ever easy to get, except when it occasionally is.. and so we second guess whether it's really worth having.. and why aren't others also getting some? Because they can't no matter how hard they try, dumb-ass!

Slideshow of my bike race team: Millwork One Racing

Recent posts are by a renegade blogger who has hijacked Amerikan Turk, not by me, Murat. This slideshow is from me though. I have no time to blog and Amerikan Turk is on it's last legs. Forgive me for letting it slip into such a death spiral. Well.. at least you now get to see where much of my free time is used. Enjoy:

Olgunlasmak.

Artık eskisi gibi her haftasonu birileri ile dısarı çıkmak
istemiyorum.Beni yoran iliskiler, yeni tanısmalar, yeni yüzler aramıyorum. Eski
dostlukların da özetini çıkarmaya basladım. Iliskilerde tasarrufa
gidiyorsun her seyde oldugu gibi ve gereksiz insanlari hayatindan atmak
istiyorsun.

Yapmacik, inanmadan konusmak istemiyorum artık. Beni anlamayanlarla
Konuşmak cümle kirliliði yaratıyor ve hak edenlere saklıyorum enerjimi.
Istedigime istedigimi deme özgürlügüne sahibim, elestirme hakkını
Olusturan yasamislık ve yeterli yas faktörü artik bende de var.

"Ben demistim" ,"ben bilirim","ben zaten anlamıstım", sendromunda
Olanlarla arkadasliklari bir kez daha sorguluyorsun. iliskilerini
sadelestirmeye baslayinca sıra iyi ve kötü gün dostlarını ayıklamaya
geliyor. Kötü gün dostlarını belirliyor ve onlara daha çok önem
veriyorsun. Iyi gün dostu bulmak ne kadar kolaysa kötü gün
dostu bulmak bir o kadar zor, biliyorum. Dostlar ihtiyaç oldugunda
göçmen kuslar gibi sicaga uçuyor ve sadece seninle birlikte sürüden
ayri düsenler kalıyor.

Zamanın ne kadar kıymetli oldugunu ögreniyorsun buralara kadar
gelirken. Uzun düz otobanlardan oldugu gibi, kestirme bozuk yollardan
da ulasabilirsin hedeflerine. Kestirmeleri de ögrendim gide gele. Bos
geçen her saniye degerli artık. Daha yapılacak çok sey var ama, kendimi çok
yormaktan çok hırpalamaktan yana degilim. Gerektiginde "HAYIR" demeyi
ögrendim ve bu kelime basta karsındakine kırıcı gelse de senin için
hayat kurtarıcı olabiliyor. Sevgiye önem vermek gerektigini, zamanı
geldiginde elinde sadece sevginin kalacagını biliyorum. Sevgi paylasildıkça
olusuyor, olgunlasıyor.

Aileme ve seçtigim tüm dostlarıma daha önce göstermedigim sevgi,anlayis
ve ilgiyi gösteriyorum. Biliyorsun ki gidenlerin ardında sadece
iyilikler kalıyor, ne kadar sevgi dolu oldugu hatırlanıp anılıyor. Bana
çok genç olduklarını hatırlatırcasına nedense tecrübelerimi,
fikirlerimi sormaya basladılar. Verecegim cevaplar belki çok anlamsız geliyor ama
yine de dinliyorlar ama ben biliyorum ki yasamadan hiçbir sey ögrenilmiyor.
Yasamıslıgın olusturdugu bir alçakgönüllülükle gülüyorum içimden
sadece.

Artık daha şık giyiniyorum, senelerle birikmis dolaplar dolusu kıyafet
Var ve bunları kendimle paylasmalıyım. Önce kendine güzel
görünmelisin, kendi zevkime göre giyinmek istiyorum, böyle
hissediyorum.

Modaya uymak adına popomun sıgmadıgı düsük bel pantolonlara sıgmıyorum
Diye kendimi üzme tercihini de kullanabilirim. Ayıp, günah ya da ne derler
korkuları çoktan geride kaldı . Dostlarıma, kendimize yemek yapmak
hosuma gidiyor. Mutfak eskiden bir zulüm iken simdi zevk aldıgım mekanlar
arasına giriyor. Farklı lezzetler denemek güzel ve kendi lezzetimi
kendimde yaratabilecegim belli bir damak zevkim ve mutfak kültürüm olustu.

Sonra Sezen'in sarkısındaki gibi anneni daha sık düsünüyorsun ve
hatta anlıyorsun. Iste bu yeni alısmaya baslanan ve giderek hosa giden
yeni duruma olgunluk deniyor. Yasamıslıgın, görmüslügün, geride kalmıs
üflenmis dogum günü mumlarının bir sonucu kendiliginden ortaya çıkıyor
hayatın bir dönemecinde bu olgunluk. Ne zaman dersen herkese göre, ne
kadar dolu yasadıgına göre degisiyor bu olgunluk çagına ermek. Inanın
bana hayattaki düsüsler, zor alınan virajlar bu zamanı hızlandırıyor. Kendi
dünyanın küçüklügünü kesfetmek ve buna ragmen kendinin kıymetini bilmek
çok ise yarıyor. Bir gün hepimizin bu huzurlu olgunlugu bulmasını
diliyorum.

CAN DÜNDAR

Bir metod var. Hep uyguluyorum desem yalan. ınsanın içindeki topakları, insanlığının çorbasında eritmesini içeriyor ki, bunu herkes hep yapamaz.


Keşke yapsa. Hep rahat ederdi. O hep aradığı huzuru, gözünün içinde buluverirdi. O ağır gelen kafası, yerçekimsiz ortamda, kalbine değer de değerdi. Herşeyle ve herkesle bir anlığına dans eder ve o anı ömür boyu saklardı. Hani bazen oluyor ya hepimize. Bir an ışığı görüp, selamlayıp, unutuyoruz.

Ha, önce birşey hatırlatmak isterim: Dışardan sert görünen çoğu şeyin içi, bir karpuz kadar kolaydır. Tadından yenmiycek kadar güzeldir. Susuz kaldığınız çoğu şeye devadır. Ve hatta dışının renginden başkadır. Meyvelere daha dikkatli bakmalıyız. Onlar da en az bizim kadar canlı. Ben, metodu böyle sert birşeye uyguladım. Kendisini ikiye bölmesini ve içini göstermesini istedim. Genellikle yuvarlanarak kaçan bu şey, bu sefer, kimbilir belki de dilimin tatlılığına dayanamayıp, kırmızısını ve şerbetini döküverdi. Kamışı batırdım. Pek gıdıklandı, pek hoşuna gitti.

Samimiyet ve sevginin açamayacağı kapı olmadığını hep dinleriz. Bazılarımız bunu duymak için doğuya gider. ıçine bakar. Bazılarının içine bakması için uzağa gitmesi gerekir, öyle herkesin ortasında olmaz. Birşeyi duymak, hep işe yaramaz. Bir tek birşeyi yapmak işe yarar.

Ben de yaptım. Bana sırtını dönmüş gibi yapan herşeye yapıyorum şimdi. Çünkü anladım. ınsan ne derse, ne yaparsa ne verirse kendisiyle alakalı. Yani hayattaki herkesin bir an kendiniz olduğunu düşünün. Yüzlerini silin ve kendinizinkini koyun. Sonra düşünün, bu bensem nasıl davranmalı?

Cevap hep aynı: Samimiyetle ve sevgiyle. Birşeye çarparsanız, çarpıp duruyorsanız, ne zaman rastlasanız size çarpıyorsa, her seferinde topu kalbinizle karşılayın. Bırakın gururlar ayağa kalsın. ‘Oturun' dersiniz ‘henüz gitmiyoruz'.

Bu metodla bir kapıdan girdim ki sormayın. Çok heyecanlıyım. Fakat hangi hareketleri sıralarsam, karşıma çıkan canavarı yeneceğimi biliyorum. ınsanın içinde de, aynı anda basınca herşeyi alt eden tuşlardan var. Zamanla, basa basa, yana yana, basa döne döne öğreniyoruz. Hayat oyun değil demeyin.

Oyun. Eğer oynarsanız.

RIP

Today I am asked to move into the cubicle of a person who took their own life over the weekend.

He will be missed.

Sad week so far..

This wonderful April-like weather isn’t enough of a downer- a co-worker here at MW1 commited suicide over the weekend. And just now I discover that the Turkish cycling legend Rifat Caliskan (2^nd from the right- my father Irfan is on far left) has passed away from a heart attack. He was a friend of the family who raced with my father in the late 60’s, who coached me in the summer of 1989, and who was Turkey’s answer to Eddy Merckx at one time. RIP.

Forgot to include:

Dacia, Alfa Romeo and Citroen.
These are some interesting cars.
I'm blown away by the new hatch version of the Honda Civic. That thing's a work of art.
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CARS

It always amuses me how this country went from having three or four auto brands back when I was a kid, to now having more than we have in the US. Back in the 70s, the only cars on the road were LADA, Skoda, Renault and TOFAS (Turkish FIAT). These days we see such oddities as SEAT, Peugeot, and OPEL- all of which make very handsome cutting edge vehicles. Then of course the ubiquitous Kia, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Hyundai, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, VW, and Volvo are everywhere. I have not seen any Saabs. Honda Accords look like Integras and Civics look like American Accords. Weird. Imports such as Land Rovers and Lincoln Navigators cost DOUBLE, yet you see more in one day than we see in a month driving in New England. On the interstate highway between Istanbul and Ankara, we were passed by some pretty sick drivers doing nearly 200 kph in their Beamers and Benzes. Speaking of BMW- I saw one yesterday which looked like it was on steroids- a kind of bad-ass looking cross-over. I would like to have one-but even with my generous income, it's impractical and out of reach (I'm a cheap bastahd) How do they afford it? Well apparently there are two classes here- have and have not. Both are immense. Middle class is a minority. Time for breakfast. Its rainy out today so we're keeping the rental car one more day.
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Part 2 is a Go

Your hero is going to be a licensed participant of Turkish Masters Road Nationals this weekend
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